My name is Dave Stancliff. Walk down the road of life with me each day. You'll find news and my views. I'm a Vietnam Veteran, father to three sons, proud grandfather 5 times over, an independent thinker, and a former newspaper publisher and editor.

While half of financially secure voters believe in the tenet that working hard yields prosperity, 84 percent of voters facing economic hardship say it no longer works, or never did.

Feelings about the American dream's demise are basically shared across parties, with slightly more Republican voters saying it still holds true and slightly more Democratic voters saying it never held true according to a recent SurveyMonkey poll conducted by NBC.